On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 10:00 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
"Responsible for reviewing the minutes". This is a lovely ideal. Can we now be realistic? What do we really expect that "observer" to do? Will they have input in to what the minutes finally say? Do they have approval authority (i.e., do they get to vote on the acceptance of the minutes)? I'm not opposed to community members observing board meetings - I suspect many people will find them to be unexpectedly boring, with less substantive discussion than many would expect - but the objective should be a lot more clear. What about if they genuinely believe that the minutes (which most of us would recognize as having been written using a template) don't reflect or emphasize what the observer thinks were the key issues? Do they get to put forward publicly their own version of what happened or what they observed? Are they going to be permitted to observe the "executive session", where even the WMF staff are out of the room? I am fine with the general concept, but I don't think either the board or the community has really thought through the entire process. We should get it pretty much nailed down before it is implemented.
Minute-taking is a skill - just as is writing a featured article or creating a featured image. Those who think it's an easy task that should be able to be done practically after the meeting is over tend to have no real experience with writing and managing minutes at the international non-profit board level and may not fully understand why it it is important that they are correct before they're published. Publicly presenting an early, uncorrected draft will lead to nothing but tears, but there are 9 board members (plus individual presenters) who have to read, correct and approve [sections of] the minutes. The WMF Board is not and should not be the most important person in the lives of any of our board members.
hi Anne,
I appreciate your criticism, it definitely helps to shoot down ideas early, before they can mature ;) What I'm getting at is trying to find a sensible form of addressing the community's concerns without making the whole Board meetings public (I don't think it is impossible, I basically think that it would entirely change the dynamics of the meetings - there would be an incentive for the community-elected members to speak up to gain political support, for example; this idea calls for just as much shredding apart as the "observer" one).
The observer I have in mind would not be responsible for taking the minutes (as you've pointed out, it is a skill), but reviewing them. Anyhow, it is just an ad-hoc idea that I think could be refined, if it was perceived as addressing the problem of the Board meetings being overly cryptic and secretive for the general public.
dj